NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors can’t seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a federal judge ruled Friday, foiling the Trump administration’s bid to see him executed for what it called a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed a federal murder charge that had enabled prosecutors to seek capital punishment, finding it technically flawed. She wrote that she did so to “foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment to be considered by the jury" as it weighs whether to convict Mangione.
Garnett also dismissed a gun charge but left in place stalking charges that carry a maximum punishment of life in prison. To seek the death penalty, prosecutors needed to show that Mangione killed Thompson while committing another "crime of violence." Stalking doesn't fit that definition, Garnett wrote in her opinion, citing case law and legal precedents.
In a win for prosecutors, Garnett ruled they can use evidence collected from his backpack during his arrest, including a 9mm handgun and a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to “wack” an insurance executive. Mangione’s lawyers had sought to exclude those items, arguing the search was illegal because police hadn’t yet obtained a warrant.
During a hearing Friday, Garnett gave prosecutors 30 days to update her on whether they'll appeal her death penalty decision. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, which is prosecuting the federal case, declined to comment.
Garnett acknowledged that the decision “may strike the average person — and indeed many lawyers and judges — as tortured and strange, and the result may seem contrary to our intuitions about the criminal law." But, she said, it reflected her "committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to the charges in this case. The law must be the Court’s only concern.”
Mangione, 27, appeared relaxed as he sat with his lawyers during the scheduled hearing, which took place about an hour after Garnett issued her written ruling. Prosecutors retained their right to appeal but said they were ready to proceed to trial.
Outside court afterward, Mangione attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo said her client and his defense team were relieved by the “incredible decision.”
Jury selection in the federal case is set for Sept. 8, followed by opening statements and testimony on Oct. 13. The state trial's date hasn’t been set. On Wednesday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office urged the judge in that case to schedule a July 1 trial date.
“That case is none of my concern,” Garnett said, adding that she would proceed as if the federal case is the only case unless she hears formally from parties involved in the state case. She also said the federal case will be paused if the government appeals her death penalty ruling.
Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used by critics to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
Following through on Trump’s campaign promise to vigorously pursue capital punishment, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered Manhattan federal prosecutors last April to seek the death penalty against Mangione.
It was the first time the Justice Department sought the death penalty in President Donald Trump’s second term. He returned to office a year ago with a vow to resume federal executions after they were halted under his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
Garnett, a Biden appointee and former Manhattan federal prosecutor, ruled after hearing oral arguments earlier this month.
Besides seeking to have the death penalty rejected on the grounds Garnett cited, Mangione’s lawyers argued that Bondi’s announcement flouted long-established Justice Department protocols and was “based on politics, not merit.”
They said her remarks, followed by posts to her Instagram account and a TV appearance, “indelibly prejudiced” the grand jury process resulting in his indictment weeks later.
Prosecutors urged Garnett to keep the death penalty on the table, arguing that the charges were legally sound and Bondi’s remarks weren’t prejudicial, as “pretrial publicity, even when intense, is not itself a constitutional defect.”
Prosecutors argued that careful questioning of prospective jurors would alleviate the defense’s concerns about their knowledge of the case and ensure Mangione’s rights are respected at trial.
“What the defendant recasts as a constitutional crisis is merely a repackaging of arguments” rejected in previous cases, prosecutors said. “None warrants dismissal of the indictment or categorical preclusion of a congressionally authorized punishment.”
FILE - Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Criminal Court for an evidence hearing, Dec. 18, 2025, in New York. (Shannon Stapleton/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Criminal Court for an evidence hearing, Thursday , Dec. 18, 2025, in New York. (Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Criminal Court for an evidence hearing, Dec. 18, 2025, in New York. (Shannon Stapleton/Pool Photo via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's nomination of Kevin Warsh to chair the Federal Reserve could bring about sweeping changes at a central bank that dominates the global economy and markets like no other.
Warsh, if approved by the Senate, will be under close scrutiny from financial markets and Congress given his appointment by a president who has loudly demanded much lower rates than many economists think are justified by economic conditions. Whether he can maintain the Fed's long time independence from day-to-day politics while also placating Trump will be a tremendous challenge.
Still, former associates and friends of Warsh say that he has the intellectual heft and people skills to potentially pull it off. His family also has connections to Trump that could reduce the pressure from the White House.
Warsh has “a judicious temperament and both the intellectual understanding but also the hopefully diplomatic talents to navigate what is a challenging position at this point,” said Raghuram Rajan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and formerly head of India's central bank.
Warsh would replace current chair Jerome Powell when his term expires in May. Trump chose Powell to lead the Fed in 2017 but this year has relentlessly assailed him for not cutting interest rates quickly enough.
"I have known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best,” Trump posted on social media Friday. “On top of everything else, he is ‘central casting,’ and he will never let you down.”
Trump said later Friday in the Oval Office that he didn't ask Warsh to commit to cutting rates, calling such a question “inappropriate" and adding, “I want to keep it nice and pure.”
But Trump added, “But he certainly wants to cut rates.”
The appointment, which requires Senate confirmation, amounts to a return trip for Warsh, 55, who was a member of the Fed's board from 2006 to 2011. He was the youngest governor in history when he was appointed at age 35. He is currently a fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
In some ways, Warsh is an unlikely choice for the Republican president because he has long supported higher interest rates to control inflation. Trump, by contrast, has said the Fed’s key rate should be as low as 1%, a level few economists endorse, and far below its current level of about 3.6%.
During his time as governor, Warsh objected to some of the low-interest rate policies that the Fed pursued during and after the Great Recession of 2008-09. He also often expressed concern at that time that inflation would soon accelerate, even though it remained at rock-bottom levels for many years after that recession ended.
More recently, however, in speeches and opinion columns, Warsh has voiced support for lower rates, seemingly coming in line with Trump's point of view.
Financial markets reacted in ways that suggest investors expect Warsh could keep rates a bit higher over time. The dollar and yields on long-term U.S. Treasurys ticked higher. U.S. stocks fell about 0.5%. The biggest moves were in the volatile metals markets, where gold dropped more than 5% and silver sank more than 13%.
In Congress, Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, reiterated in a social media post that he will oppose Warsh's nomination until a Justice Department investigation into Powell is resolved.
Tillis is on the Senate committee that will consider Warsh's nomination.
He added that Warsh is a “qualified nominee,” but stressed that “protecting the independence of the Federal Reserve from political interference or legal intimidation is non-negotiable.”
Tillis’s opposition could complicate the confirmation process. Asked late Thursday whether Warsh could be confirmed without Tillis’s support, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said, “probably not.”
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee, said, “This nomination is the latest step in Trump’s attempt to seize control of the Fed."
Warsh has frequently criticized the Fed for its ownership of trillions of dollars in government and mortgage-backed securities, which it accumulated after the Great Recession and during the pandemic.
Warsh has charged that the massive bond-buying, which was intended to lower longer-term interest rates and boost the economy, enabled Congress to ramp up spending without concern for higher borrowing costs.
Reducing the Fed's $6.6 trillion balance sheet, however, will be a fraught exercise because banks have become accustomed to the large amounts of cash in the financial system that it provides.
Warsh has also said the Fed's economic models wrongly assume that rapid economic growth threatens to elevate inflation. Instead, “Inflation is caused when government spends too much and prints too much,” he wrote in a November column in The Wall Street Journal.
The announcement comes after an extended and unusually public search. The chair of the Federal Reserve is tasked with combating inflation in the United States while also supporting maximum employment. The Fed is also the nation’s top banking regulator.
The Fed’s rate decisions, over time, influence borrowing costs throughout the economy, including for mortgages, car loans and credit cards.
Trump has sought to exert more control over the Fed. In August he tried to fire Lisa Cook, one of seven governors on the Fed’s board, in an effort to secure a majority of the board. Cook, however, sued to keep her job, and the Supreme Court, in a hearing last week, appeared inclined to let her stay in her position while her suit is resolved.
Powell revealed this month that the Fed had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department about his congressional testimony on a $2.5 billion building renovation. Powell said the subpoenas were “pretexts” to force the Fed to cut rates.
Warsh has expressed support for the president's economic policies, despite a history as a more conventional, pro-free trade Republican.
In a January 2025 column in The Wall Street Journal, Warsh praised Trump's deregulatory policies and potential spending cuts, which he said would help bring down inflation. He has also suggested that artificial intelligence will boost productivity, making the economy more efficient while reducing inflation. Lower inflation would allow the Fed to lower rates.
In December, Trump wrote on social media of the need for lower borrowing costs and said, “Anyone who disagrees with me will never be the Fed chairman!”
If confirmed, Warsh would face challenges in pushing interest rates much lower. The chair is just one member of the Fed’s 19-person rate-setting committee, with 12 of those officials voting on each rate decision. The committee is already split between those worried about persistent inflation, who’d like to keep rates unchanged, and those who think that recent upticks in unemployment point to a stumbling economy that needs lower interest rates to bolster hiring.
Financial markets could also push back. If the Fed cuts its short-term rate too aggressively and is seen as doing so for political reasons, then Wall Street investors could sell Treasury bonds out of fear that inflation would rise. Such sales would push up longer-term interest rates, including mortgage rates, and backfire on Warsh.
Trump considered appointing Warsh as Fed chair during his first term, though ultimately he went with Powell. Warsh’s father-in-law is Ronald Lauder, heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune and a longtime donor and confidant of Trump’s.
Follow the AP's coverage of the Federal Reserve System at https://apnews.com/hub/federal-reserve-system.
FILE - Kevin Warsh, speaking to the media about his report on transparency at the Bank of England, in London, Dec., 11, 2014. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, Pool, File)
FILE - Kevin Warsh, visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in a panel discussion on "Central Banking in an Age of Improvisation," Nov. 28, 2011 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
FILE - Kevin Warsh, speaking to the media about his report on transparency at the Bank of England, in London, Dec., 11, 2014. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, Pool, File)
FILE - Kevin Warsh, visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in a panel discussion on "Central Banking in an Age of Improvisation," Nov. 28, 2011 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
FILE - Kevin Warsh speaks to the media about his report on transparency at the Bank of England, in London, Dec., 11, 2014. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, Pool, File)
President Donald Trump arrives for the premiere of first lady Melania Trump's movie "Melania" at The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
